Authenticity and Vulnerability

Arthur in the story ‘Keep it real’ provided a balanced blend of authenticity and vulnerability in his leadership.

His first major experience after spending four months working on the launch campaign in Germany, only to have the lawyers tear it all up, then going into his office room and weeping for 10 minutes out of pure frustration was his vulnerable moment.

He would then go back to tell his team the news and urge them to come up with a better campaign, which they eventually did in less than 1 month. He was authentic1 in revealing his vulnerability to the team by calmly sharing with them that he was devastated by the turn of events.

Vulnerability

In the second incident a couple years down when, on the morning of a presentation to the board of directors, he found that a competitor had just officially launched a very similar campaign, he was once again devastated.

Author would walk back into the team office, express his disappointment2 at the turn of events, and urge the team to come up with a better campaign.

That is the tricky balance that a leader needs to perform. On one hand, team members still expect a leader to be positive, and to keep driving the team towards results. On the other hand, team members connect with an authentic leader whose comfortable enough to reveal their vulnerabilities.

Balance

It is this inner comfort and confidence to reveal vulnerabilities in an authentic manner that allows a strengthening of connection and bond between the first time leader and team member.

Authenticity and vulnerability is not just a challenge for the first time leader at the front lines, it can also a challenge for many experienced leaders in upper echelons of an organization.

Elizabeth was promoted to become the CEO of a global public relations firm, Otter Plays. She had been the deputy CEO for three years before her boss moved on to bigger opportunities elsewhere.

When she became the CEO, she believed that it was her responsibility to take ultimate accountability for her entire management team. She became focused on ensuring that she was there to support them, would give them all the credit, and shoulder the blame for mistakes3.

By doing so, she had almost work herself to near burn out after 12 months on the job.

Revealing what is inside

One day during a management team meeting, she decided to open up after receiving some feedback about her leadership. She shared with her management team that she could not go on doing what she doing. She felt tired and unsupported. It was a moment of revealing her vulnerability in an authentic manner.

Her management team members told her that they were always ready and willing to support her, she only had to let them. Throwing the meeting agenda aside, the management team members individually talked about how each of them could step up to share her workload and emotional burden of leading others.

Elizabeth walked out of that meeting feeling emotionally lightened from her burden of leadership?.

Confidence to be

The confidence to vulnerable with team members in a positive minded attempt to move things forward is the very essence of authenticity for leaders. It means acknowledging that these vulnerabilities do exist, and still meeting expectation of team members of being there to help everyone achieve results

That is the essence of authentic and vulnerable leadership for first-time leaders, and it is an art that they will have to master over their lifetime.

Exercise

Are you comfortable and confident enough as leader to share your vulnerabilities in a genuine, authentic manner to your team members?

Reference

1 – Boas Shamir, Galit Eilam-Shamir , (2018), “What’s Your Story?” A Life-Stories Approach to Authentic Leadership Development, in Israel Katz , Galit Eilam-Shamir , Ronit Kark , Yair Berson(ed.) Leadership Now: Reflections on the Legacy of Boas Shamir (Monographs in Leadership and Management, Volume 9) Emerald Publishing Limited, pp.51 – 76

2 – Nienaber, A-M. , Hofeditz, M. and Romeike, P.D. (2015) Vulnerability and Trust in Leader Follower Relationships. Personnel Review, volume 44, Iss. 4, pp. 567-591.

3 – Mats Alvesson and Katja Einola (2019), Warning for Excessive Positivity: Authentic Leadership and Other traps in Leadership Studies, The Leaders Quarterly, Vol. 30, Iss. 2,

4 – Baek-Kyoo Joo, Sung Jun Jo, (2017) "The effects of perceived authentic leadership and core self-evaluations on organizational citizenship behavior: The role of psychological empowerment as a partial mediator", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 38 Issue: 3, pp.463-481